Comment & Debate: Public education

Jul. 20, 2010

The cost of public education keeps rising in Vermont with efforts made by the governor and Legislature to contain expenditures. It has been a thorny sub­ject for politicians as they grapple with the state’s attempts to reduce costs while maintaining local control at a time of less revenue.

Candidates have taken shots at the Republican admin­­istration for unremitting criticism of the public education system. The administration has continued its push to ei­ther cut expenses or cut tax rates. Talk has been ongoing about the need for consolidation as the student popula­tion drops and per pupil spending remains high. This is No. 8 in our series of questions and answers with the ma­jor party candidates leading up to the Aug. 24 primary.

The candidates we’re following are: Democrats Deb Markowitz, Doug Racine, Matt Dunne, Peter Shumlin, Su­san Bartlett and Republican Brian Dubie. Send us your thoughts to be considered for publication to letters@burlingtonfreepress.com. Please keep it to about 250 words. Include your name, town of residence and a day­time phone number.

What changes, if any, would you make to how we pay for public education, how much we pay and how the public school system is structured?

Susan Bartlett

I believe that there should be larger ad­ministra­tive dis­tricts for Vermont school sys­tems.

Larger administrative dis­tricts do not mean large schools. In face I would sug­gest that it would be larger districts and a better man­agement of resources that can save our small schools.

As governor I would set the goal of having each adminis­trative district set around our technical centers and I would keep our local school boards. We spend $1 billion on K-12 education and in many communities; the school system is the biggest employer in the area. My goal would be top-notch professional financial man­agement at the district level and this would allow the lo­cal boards to focus on the educational programs that are taking place in their schools.

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In order to achieve these larger districts I would be­gin by having the best ad­ministrative practices iden­tified and then require that all schools and existing dis­tricts adopt them. When all of our schools and districts have similar practices, the process of neighboring dis­tricts reaching agreement on consolidation should be much easier.

These larger districts would give the administra­tion more resources to man­age and this would lead to savings in staff, but more im­portantly it would lead to far greater educational opportu­nity for all of our students and that is the outcome that I believe should be of the most concern to all Ver­monters.

The cost of education is increasing at a rate that is simply not sustainable. Two costs are driving this in­crease; personal and special education. The personal can be managed by the above structural changes. Special education needs to be man­aged by the way we pay for the services we provide to children with special needs.

Today, there are children coming to school with prob­lems that are caused by diffi­cult family situations. Our schools have become the deep pocket for social serv­ices that these children need if they are to become suc­cessful. That means we have our property taxes paying for services that the General Fund should be responsible for paying.

The federal government has completely failed to pay their 40 percent of special education. Currently they are paying approximately 15 percent. As governor I would work with our federal delegation to get the money that is owed to the states. If the federal government doesn’t want to pay their part of the bill, then they can give us more flexibility in the federal requirements.

Vermont has a good sys­tem of education, my goal as governor would be to achieve even better educa­tional opportunities for each child and to reduce the cost.

Working together, we can achieve these goals.

Deb Markowitz

As a mother of three who have gone through Ver­mont’s public schools (two are still in high school), I know how important it is for us to maintain our commit­ment to Vermont’s public schools.

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Our schools are recog­nized as some of the very best in the country. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), our students rank 2nd or better in reading, and 3rd or better in math. When we compare our math re­sults with similar states, Vermont’s students outper­form all but one state.

Clearly, we are doing some­thing right. I also know that we are facing some serious chal­lenges as a state. One out of five of our young people don’t graduate from high school. Fewer than half of our students go on to higher education; and when they do, colleges report that many of these students are not well-prepared. At the same time, our school-age population is declining and the costs of educating our children are growing. For the first time in Vermont’s history, we need to meet the challenge of growing diver­sity in our schools, and meet the needs of children whose first language is not English.

We need to keep our schools affordable while transform­ing education to better pre­pare our students for the fu­ture.

We must bend the cost curve in education to keep Vermont affordable. With our school-age population shrinking, we must find effi­ciencies so teachers can teach and children can learn. We have 62 supervisory unions and fewer than 95,000 students. I will lead efforts to consolidate school administration by reducing the number of supervisory unions in Vermont. I will also create incentives to en­courage communities to consolidate small schools — but my administration will respect the rights of commu­nities to make these impor­tant decisions. We can strengthen our supervisory unions even while we con­solidate. It should never be front-page news that schools are bulk purchasing heating fuel or school supplies. In my administration, these types of smart and sensible joint purchasing agreements will be the norm, and we will give school districts the tools they need to share re­sources across jurisdictions.

The decisions we make today about our system of public education will shape Vermont’s future for dec­ades to come. These deci­sions will determine whether our kids have a chance to compete in the global economy, whether they will be active citizens and whether they will be able to fulfill their individual potential and build a good life for themselves and for their families. We cannot let our children down.

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Peter Shumlin

Vermont has one of the highest quality education systems in the nation, yet it is facing several daunting challenges. While our school age population decreases, costs con­tinue to rise. Thou­sands of Vermont­ers are struggling to find good pay­ing jobs, while at the same time many Vermont businesses are struggling to find qualified employees.

I believe strongly in local control, but there are mea­sures we can take at the state level to reduce costs, maintain the high quality of our education, and strengthen our communi­ties. I detailed several of these steps in my plan, A Vi­sion for Vermont, which is essentially a blueprint to get Vermonters back to work.

As governor, I will work with educators, community and private caregivers, and business leaders to provide universal access to early ed­ucation and make Vermont a leader in this field. Universal pre-kindergarten education will help our children suc­ceed, build a stronger work­force, and reduce our sky­rocketing corrections budget. As Governor, I will make early education a cor­nerstone of my economic development and education policies. We must reassess our priorities in state gov­ernment. We must prioritize children instead of spending our resources on locking up non-violent offenders.

To help contain costs and improve quality, I will ex­pand distance learning tech­nologies to every school in Vermont. By more effec­tively utilizing distance learning, students from small schools can access challenging coursework no matter where they live in the state. Furthermore, as school boards struggle with dwindling class size, they can continue to offer a qual­ity education even their school grows smaller.

While Montpelier should not mandate school consoli­dation or make any other major decision affecting lo­cal school institutions, there are cases where consolidat­ing our small schools make sense. Whitingham and Wil­mington are two towns in my home county that wanted to consolidate, but without the resources to do so it took them years just to draw up the plan. As gover­nor, I will continue to pro­vide property tax incentives to communities to help them consolidate if they choose to do so.

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We all cherish our small local schools. They are often at the heart of our small Ver­mont communities. Partner­ships can be created and en­couraged with local libraries, social services, senior meal sites, and after­school childcare centers to create vibrant community centers. As Governor, I will make grants available to communities who want to utilize the space made from declining enrollment for consolidated community services.

Vermont needs an inte­grated and modernized edu­cation and economic devel­opment strategy that builds our workforce, creates jobs, and grows our economy. We must better prepare younger generations of Vermonters so they can be productive members of society and pro­vide a strong workforce for our employers. Educating our children is the single most important responsibil­ity in a Democratic society, and it is where I will priori­tize our resources as gover­nor.

Doug Racine

The fundamentals of our education financing system are sound. Our system was specifically designed to achieve the constitutional requirements of equal edu­cational op­portunity outlined in the Su­preme Court’s Brigham decision.

Vermont has the most equitable and fair sys­tem in the country and we all benefit. Public education is the foundation of a strong democracy, and I fully sup­port equal access to public education.

Like any system that has been around for many years, Act 60/68 needs a tune up.

We do enjoy our unique in­come sensitivity property tax structure, yet there are inequities in the system that need to be addressed. Also, there are inefficiencies in our education financing sys­tem that could be rectified to make the whole system more understandable and ef­ficient. It’s time for a thor­ough review of the mechan­ics of education finance, with a continued commit­ment to the guiding princi­ples of fairness and equal funding opportunity.

Our property taxes could be lower. Health care costs are one of the biggest driv­ers of school budgets, and I am proud that the legislative effort I led this year has given us an essential first step to reform and cost con­trol. Vermont schools can be operated more efficiently.

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With state government act­ing as a partner rather than as an adversary, I will help school districts achieve effi­ciencies in administrative functions, from transporta­tion to special education co­ordination to cafeteria oper­ations.

I will end the corrosive effects of years of cost shifts from the state government’s budget to our school bud­gets and property taxes.

This year I and others suc­cessfully fought against a proposal from state Senate leaders to raise the property tax to help balance the state’s general fund bud­get. Another cost driver has been the increasing number of children who come to school with serious emo­tional and behavioral prob­lems requiring intensive special education services.

This problem is preventable in many cases. I will make the long overdue invest­ments in early childhood ed­ucation to help children get off to a good start. The structural change I want to see in our school system is to have our com­munities more involved in helping kids get good aca­demic and social skills. Life is complicated for kids, and schools can’t do it alone. Pa­rental and community in­volvement are essential.

From strong early child­hood education opportuni­ties to mentoring programs to afterschool options to summer recreation and food programs, communities have responsibilities to help kids grow up happy and healthy. Our educators struggle to educate our chil­dren if they don’t have strong family and commu­nity support. We can do a better job of helping all chil­dren reach their full poten­tial.

Matt Dunne

Education is critical to the future of our economy and to ensuring the next generation of Vermonters can reach their full potential. Our decisions will de­termine whether to­day’s stu­dents are prepared to work in the global mar­ketplace and whether families will stay or move to Vermont.

However, as the student population of Vermont de­creases, adjustments must be made to ensure we can continue to afford Ver­mont’s high quality public

education. From my management experience in the private sector and as Director of a 6,000 person enterprise, I know that the first place to look for savings is not at the point of delivery — our teachers and front-line workers — but instead on the back office and adminis­trative costs. We can make smart cost reductions by increasing ef­ficiency and reducing over­head. This includes bulk purchasing of supplies, pro­viding capital to allow schools to cut energy costs by investing in efficiency and renewable energy, and reducing the number of su­pervisory unions and super­intendents by 2/3rds. Fur­thermore, I would eliminate the Common Level of Ap­praisal and move to a regu­larly scheduled appraisal system, repeal the “vote twice” law, and ensure that we base education funding on the ability to pay.

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Our size and scale also af­fords us the opportunity to use innovative education ap­proaches to save costs while providing a deeper curricu­lum. For example, using high speed Internet we can estab­lish distance learning pro­grams, allowing schools to literally share teachers and provide a wider variety of courses even in our smaller schools. We can also imple­ment statewide electronic student records to track stu­dent progress and empower teachers with the informa­tion necessary for continu­ous improvement. And with only 15,000 children be­tween the ages of 2 and 5, we can rethink early childhood education and create the first statewide demonstra­tion project for comprehen­sive, quality early education. Finally, we must ensure that we have the 21st century technology and accountabil­ity structures in place to em­power our students and teachers. By bringing uni­versal broadband Internet and affordable computer hardware to all Vermonters, we can provide access to classroom resources, sup­plementary online content, and all the world’s informa­tion. Additionally, this tech­nology will create the infra­structure necessary to build stronger partnerships be­tween our schools and inno­vative organizations like the Young Writers’ Project and the Boys and Girls Clubs.

Education in Vermont is deeply personal for me. My grandmother went to New­port schools and was first in her family to attend college.

My son Judson will start Kindergarten this fall in the same elementary school I at­tended 35 years ago. To en­sure this tradition of quality education is preserved, we must make important and necessary changes now.

Read more about my educa­tion plan at www.mattdun­ne. com.

Brian Dubie

Vermont should be a land of opportunity for our chil­dren — where our economy is growing, jobs are secure and pay well, and where we have the ability to provide the best education and the best future possible for our young peo­ple.

That’s what my campaign is all about. It’s what my service is all about.My wife, Penny, and I were both edu­cated in Vermont public schools. Our four children all went to schools in Essex Junction, like I did. As a con­cerned parent, I served on the school board for six years, including five as chair. In many ways, I’m still serv­ing today as a concerned parent.I know public educa­tion.

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I believe in public edu­cation. It’s a vital service.In Vermont, we have good schools. But we can make them great schools.That means working with parents, educators, administrators and school boards to provide every child in our state with a first-rate education.

We should be able to present Vermonters with clear, unambiguous informa­tion on how our students are performing and where we need improvement, and we will. We need to provide clear information on how schools use your tax dollars — and we will. We need re­alistic goals.Taxpayers are confused by shifting rebates, prebates, appraisals, and tweaks from Montpelier that blur the link between spend­ing and taxes. Our problem is simple: we spend more than we have.

Enrollment has dropped by 13 percent since 1996; staffing increased by 22 per­cent In 1996, we spent $7,200 a year to educate each child.

Today, we spend $15,475. In the next 10 years, we will lose another 8,000 students.

It’s estimated that property tax rates could rise by 25 percent — up 22 cents — by 2013. When education spending grows faster than the underlying economy, a budget crisis is inevitable.

We cannot sustain our spending levels without working together to make dramatic changes.

Consolidating school dis­tricts where it makes sense, bulk-purchasing, and similar measures can help. We must optimize the talents of our educators, and implement a strong program for profes­sional development. They deserve clear and attainable standards of accountability for student performance.

Our educators account for 70 percent of a school’s costs, but 100 percent of its success.

The $47.1 million in fed­eral funding just awarded to our state for internet expan­sion will bring untold oppor­tunity and a new level of equality to classrooms across our state, with distan­ce- learning, technical train­ing, virtual classrooms and more, by linking every school to high-capacity, high-speed, and affordable broadband. We also need comprehensive data systems to track achievement, so we know what works and what doesn’t.Education is about children. Quality must come first. We need to empower parents, and look to them to make the best decisions about their own children’s future. The only way we can meet our education chal­lenge is through partnership and trust, and by growing jobs and paychecks.